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Massive flooding devastates China

Exceptionally heavy rain last week in north China has left hundreds dead or missing and pushed hundreds of thousands from their homes. Some residents in hard-hit areas though are calling the disaster man-made.

Scores dead, thousands homeless

Torrential rains swept through northern China last week with a force exceptional even for the summer monsoon season. Jingxing county received more rain Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning than it had during all of 2015. Hundreds of thousands of residents were forced from their homes, others were trapped while the waters rose. State news agency Xinhua reports that 130 people have been killed.

Beijing affected

The rainfall hit Beijing, disrupting traffic in the heavily populated capital but claiming no casualties. President Xi Jinping addressed the situation on Wednesday, calling on China to prepare itself for more hardship and vowing to hold accountable officials who have added to the damage through negligence.

Unthinkable loss

A woman at a farm in Hebei province, which took the heaviest toll of the rainfall, cries while holding a pig lost to the flood. Some 300,000 people were evactuated from the area. In total, crops worth 16 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) were destroyed in the flooding.

A rising threat

Troops and heavy equipment have been mobilized as the rain threatens embankments along rivers in central China. Water levels have risen in some rivers above those reached in 1998, when flooding mostly along the mighty Yangtze river killed over 4,000.

Caught unprepared

But many are unsatisfied with the government's response to the disaster, especially in Hubei province, where volunteers are seen above tending to a villager. Floods swept the town of Xingtai while villagers slept, killing at least 25 people. Photos of the damage and drowned children circulated on social media in the days after, sparking emotional indictments against local authorites.

'Derelection of duty'

Some residents of Xingtai, pictured above, suspect that the flooding was caused not by the breaking of a levee in a nearby river, but rather the planned release - but without warning - of water from a local reservoir. The Hebei province Communist Party committee has since suspended four officials for "derelection of duty." The town's mayor issued an apology in the aftermath.

Country-wide chaos

Flooding - though not usually of this scale - is typical in China during the summer monsoon season beginning in May. Southern and central China also experienced devestation this year, with floods killing over 200 people, according to Chinese state media. Above, residents of a village in the southeastern Fuijan province clean up the damage from a Typhoon Nepartak, which struck earlier in July.

Scores dead, thousands homeless

Torrential rains swept through northern China last week with a force exceptional even for the summer monsoon season. Jingxing county received more rain Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning than it had during all of 2015. Hundreds of thousands of residents were forced from their homes, others were trapped while the waters rose. State news agency Xinhua reports that 130 people have been killed.

Beijing affected

The rainfall hit Beijing, disrupting traffic in the heavily populated capital but claiming no casualties. President Xi Jinping addressed the situation on Wednesday, calling on China to prepare itself for more hardship and vowing to hold accountable officials who have added to the damage through negligence.

Unthinkable loss

A woman at a farm in Hebei province, which took the heaviest toll of the rainfall, cries while holding a pig lost to the flood. Some 300,000 people were evactuated from the area. In total, crops worth 16 billion yuan ($2.4 billion) were destroyed in the flooding.

A rising threat

Troops and heavy equipment have been mobilized as the rain threatens embankments along rivers in central China. Water levels have risen in some rivers above those reached in 1998, when flooding mostly along the mighty Yangtze river killed over 4,000.

Caught unprepared

But many are unsatisfied with the government's response to the disaster, especially in Hubei province, where volunteers are seen above tending to a villager. Floods swept the town of Xingtai while villagers slept, killing at least 25 people. Photos of the damage and drowned children circulated on social media in the days after, sparking emotional indictments against local authorites.

'Derelection of duty'

Some residents of Xingtai, pictured above, suspect that the flooding was caused not by the breaking of a levee in a nearby river, but rather the planned release - but without warning - of water from a local reservoir. The Hebei province Communist Party committee has since suspended four officials for "derelection of duty." The town's mayor issued an apology in the aftermath.

Country-wide chaos

Flooding - though not usually of this scale - is typical in China during the summer monsoon season beginning in May. Southern and central China also experienced devestation this year, with floods killing over 200 people, according to Chinese state media. Above, residents of a village in the southeastern Fuijan province clean up the damage from a Typhoon Nepartak, which struck earlier in July.